No more ho-hum for housewife in ACT’s ‘Walk on the Moon’

In the summer of ’69, men are about to walk on the moon and Woodstock is about to make musical history. But not far from that festival, in a Jewish resort in the Catskills, life is “earthbound,” humdrum.

Pearl (Katie Brayben), in the opening moments of “A Walk on the Moon,” can take in cosmic and cultural shifts only vicariously. “You’ll kiss the Milky Way goodbye,” the housewife sings of the Apollo 11 astronauts, “then leave your footprints in the sky. Send me a postcard from the galaxy.”

The world premiere musical, in previews at the American Conservatory Theater’s Geary Theater, eventually gives Pearl a path to a world beyond her own. It’s adapted from the 1999 film of the same name, with a book by Pamela Gray (who also wrote the screenplay) and music and lyrics by Paul Scott Goodman. Sheryl Kaller directs.

Lily Janiak joined the San Francisco Chronicle as theater critic in May 2016. Previously, her writing appeared in Theatre Bay Area, American Theatre, SF Weekly, the Village Voice and HowlRound. She holds a BA in theater studies from Yale and an MA in drama from San Francisco State.